Arc 0: Prelude 1 - For Whom the Bell Tolls

melancholy /ˈmɛlənkəli/

a feeling of pensive sadness, typically with no obvious cause.

Don’t mourn the dead.

Don’t mourn the living.

Mourn yourself.

The dead leave on a whim, and the living tire themselves with emotions to mourn them for unnecessary matters, but it is you who suffers more when all is said and done. Why must you suffer? If you rid yourself of these attachments called “emotions,” of “relationships,” then you would feel nothing but the somber note of surprise. No sorrow. No grief. No longer will regret be an obstacle you need to overcome.

That was what the young man gazing outside the window thought.

He was a senior student from “Everille Secondary School.” Not much of a talker or a patron of socializing. He would always position himself in the corner of the classroom, right by the window where he could disconnect himself from his surroundings.

Four years have almost passed in this school, yet he was always by his lonesome. It wasn’t that those around him ignored or avoided him, in fact, they chose, more often than not, to befriend him. But he didn’t see that.

He did not want that.

And it all tied back to his solemn ideology of reclusion.

From his appearance, his blonde hair might have been unkempt, and his eyes might have carried bags for years, but it wasn’t brooding enough to reign hostility over the eyes of others. As for height, he was neither short nor tall, just average enough to not fetch any insecurity within.

It wasn’t the product of lack of sociability or any of that kind — he could very well hold a meaningful conversation if needed to.

「But it’s all so tiresome.」

There was but one reason: his resentment for anguish, for suffering.

If he distanced himself from everyone, from useless attachments, then there would be no one to care about, no one to cry for when they hit the bucket. A life of isolation amounted better than a life of sorrow. There was no pain to carry, yet it was that very pain that held him back, that forced this twisted fate upon him.

Zachary Ashworth was a lone child, and the only heir to the Ashworth family, which dissipated entirely with the death of his father and his denial to take up the mantle. He had no one better to care about than his old man. He was his friend and mentor.

So when it all fell…

…when the world turned black and the noise seeped in…

…he was abandoned…

…shattered…

…alone.

Even the comfort of his mother could not suffice. He chose not to grieve… because he could never feel proper emotion. His connection with his father was the only emotion that felt real to him, and now that it was beyond repair. There was nothing.

Yet the only thing that felt soothing to him was the rain.

Watching the rain from the window was a blessing he always needed. Not from its serenity, but from the chaos it yielded. Rapid tears raining down on the world vigorously. To him, there was nothing about it that could not be named serenity in chaos. It was just like the monologue he once heard, the world moved, but the tears were ever so lost in the rain.

That reasoning aside, anything would be a good distraction from Mrs. Grace’s literature class. Zachary had a proper understanding and knew exactly what that class was about that afternoon. Because he, himself, was a devotee to literature with the aspiration of becoming an author one day, despite his little understanding of emotion itself.

The class was nothing special (it never was on any other occasion). It was just a discussion on an old novel, like usual, titled “The City of Thieves.” Quite the grandiose name, but it was a fable not out of the ordinary. A tale about two individuals from varying backgrounds thrown into the slammer alone in the midst of yet another great war. And in those trying times, they establish an alliance over their shared fate of solitary to embark on an unforgettable adventure.

In the mind of any youth in this era, this was a tale that carried only boredom. It would have caught Zachary’s attention had he not read that story over and over before this occasion.

The entire class, the students, were in another world of their own, yet Mrs. Grace carried on. She was not old enough to not notice the state of detachment the students were in, but she was young enough to choose to ignore it, which was, in itself, a barely condoned behavior from a teacher like her.

But then again, what could she ever do? Slam the chalkboard? It would stop them for a few minutes and the tedium ambience would take them over again.

Some students were even lost in their own tales, the usual gossip. But they varied from simple rumors about fellow classmates to myths that haunt that very school. Everyone favored a bit of thrill, so there was always something of the kind.

There was once the matter of Mrs. Grace being in a relationship with one of the students in her class, a typical dramatic rumor to spice up the new year, as evident by that particular student earning high grades despite their failure multiple times prior to that rumor. It wasn’t that far-fetched in some aspects. She was quite the beauty for the eyes — no one would actually believe she was in her mid-thirties unless they were told. It was incredibly absurd and turned out to be a total fabrication of a troublemaker’s mind. But, like most rumors, it persisted in the mouths and ears of most students to this day.

However, this absurd rumor was but the mere tip of the iceberg to all the rumors suddenly spiraling around, not just the school, but around town.

From the rumor about a mother who was accused of murdering her own children, despite having no memory of it all, at the beginning of the year to the odd strings of suicide occurring throughout the entirety of the town. Some suspected it was serial killings disguised as suicide and that the watchmen were simply hiding that fact from the public.

In more mystical matters from the students’ gossip, there was once a fable that revolved around an old urban legend strictly named “Eight Feet Tall,” a woman who, like the name had suggested, was around eight feet tall, wearing a long stained white dress with a straw hat covering the top of her freakishly extensive dark hair. It was as if it was something out of Japanese horror legend, which it actually was. The creature, as described, would feed on the young children who caught onto the eerie sound — a repressed echo resembling the sound of banging on a solid surface — it would make before making an appearance. There was no specific location of where it lied, it would just roam the halls at night, or so it was told.

That being said, this was but a rare tale spread around to entice the history of this school, which was less than a hundred years old — still an urban legend first and foremost. This was a rural town, far from the reaches of the modern era, so it was natural such legends would remain even in this century.

Zachary did not care for all those tall tales. He had his own tale to think about in spite of it all. In front of him was a small notebook that harbored the tale of a dark knight’s journey of slaughtering the false champions of an elusive age. It was a short tale that he struggled to come to a conclusion with.

Being the aspiring author he was, he had so many things to write, so many things to think about, and yet, he could never formulate their words properly. There was always an obstacle in the way, hurdling a path that he, himself, feared to take.

“Act zaxat draxaps eep craxapt bel tedaxaupp.”

A voice could be heard at the end of the classroom. It was Mrs. Grace. Zachary could only hear nothing but muffled words that made no sense whatsoever. But from the manner of how she turned away from the desk and how the students were collecting their things to stand up and leave, it was the end of the class.

School day was over.

The quiet gossip was long gone, and now loud muffled voices filled the classroom to the brim with the gibberish words that the simple mind could not comprehend.

It was how Zachary perceived the world around him.

He chose not to indulge within it, and so he shunned out every meaning to it. Even with the words making no sense, he could still distinguish the emotions behind a person’s words, a feeling he, himself, could never attain. The act of conversing in itself was quite tiresome for him. And so, he preserved his energy for what was necessary. Only speak to those worth talking to, and only hear those who are worth listening to, which were a select few that did not show improvement to his state.

The students started to leave. Zachary remained in his place. He wasn’t the only one as some would stay behind, but he stayed put for a very different reason.

As the door was open, he was able to see her.

Standing right by the door just outside the classroom was a young woman dressed in the school’s attire like any other student.

But she stood out for all the wrong reasons.

She was someone who eagerly awaited Zachary at the end of every school day; a waste of energy. What she wanted and why it was from him, he had no idea. He never stuck around to listen to her. Her presence was a threat, which was why he tended to avoid her every time. But she was quick on learning his tactics and retaliated with persistence. At every chance he tried to push her away, she would always come back to him.

He did not know if it was always the same girl as the noise prevented him from seeing her clearly. The only feature he would remember is her long brown hair.

“Just what the hell do you want from me?” He mumbled to himself after taking a deep breath.

Packing the small bag that held his few notebooks, he rushed out of the classroom, before even the teacher could leave. There was no need to hear anything else from her because he wouldn’t, and he couldn’t stand the noise inside. It was always uncanny to him, one of the reasons why he was not in favor of crowds. And above all, he wanted to avoid the girl.

Even with that timing, he could not escape her.

“Ygemua!”

She called out, but she was only ‘noise’ to him.

And so he did what he always did, he walked away.

She did not move. She did not call out. She lost him once again.

Escaping the girl, Zachary found himself lost in the flood of students crowding the hallways. The path to the entrance was not going to be an easy one. Although most of them were heading there anyway, it was only a matter of time, a waste of precious time for him.

The town was small, the population was few, but it didn’t excuse the absurd amount of rush every individual was in. It might have been due to the curfew set for the evening but it has been the norm for years so everyone would be naturally prepared for it.

Near the exit, there were more students gathered up to the side by the entrance to the girls’ bathroom. It seemed most of them stopped in front of what seemed like quite the commotion. Usually, these types of gatherings would happen if there was a fight going on.

It wasn’t like it mattered to Zachary anyway.

However, as he passed by, he caught a glimpse of what was happening through the small gaps left by the crowd.

Due to his ability to shut everyone out, he couldn’t comprehend what everyone was saying or mumbling between each other, but it seemed that some were in a state of panic.

It was there, in the middle of the vacant space left by the crowd, on the ground was a girl who seemed to have passed out.

「All of this for that? I swear these people…」

Zachary did not care.

That girl probably skipped out on her meals and passed out. Such occasions would happen often in this school, so it wasn’t out of the ordinary, and certainly not something for him to bother with.

In spite of everything, he moved, just like the rain.